American Daniel Hsu brings the chamber music portion of the Cliburn to a close. Courtesy photo 

Rachel Cheung, the finalist from Hong Kong, enjoys the audience’s response to her performance of Brahms. Courtesy photo 

Russia’s Gregory Tchaidze performs with the Brentano String Quartet. Courtesy photo 
 

By ANN MCLAUGHLIN

Following a practice that began with the very first Cliburn Competition, all competitors are required to learn a brand new work written especially for the competition. This is an excellent test of each competitor’s ability to learn and interpret notes on a page never encountered before.

In this competition, the new work was Toccata on “L’homme armé” by esteemed Canadian pianist and composer Marc Andre Hamelin. All 30 competitors performed this piece during the preliminary round.

After a quick dash through a morning thunder storm, we attended a panel discussion with jury members including Hamelin. Not surprisingly, Hamelin was asked (probably for the umpteenth time) when he was going to perform the piece himself. He responded that he expected to play it in the not too distant future.

The next event of the day was a lunch-time recital by competitors who were eliminated before the semi-finals. The “not-to-distant-future” arrived when Hamelin appeared and played his Toccata, a lovely surprise.

Yesterday evening, the final three competitors played their chosen piano quintets with the Brentano String Quartet. Russian Georgy Tchaidze played beautifully in the third performance of Dvořák’s Quintet in A major, Op. 81, the third time we have heard this piece over two days. I’d still give South Korean Yekwon Sunwoo’s splendid account of that quintet my gold star.

Rachel Cheung of Hong Kong played the Brahms F Minor well but it didn’t speak to me. Maybe I was sleepy. I definitely woke up when Daniel Hsu launched into the Franck Quintet. We heard Russian Yuri Favorin play this piece the previous evening. What a difference! Our young American (Hsu is only 19) has put himself in medal contention for sure.

With the chamber music portion of the finals wrapped up, we move on to the really heavy lifting, those huge concertos with Leonard Slatkin and the Fort Worth Symphony.  Mr. Slatkin is also on the jury and had some interesting comments to make during the morning’s panel discussion regarding this competition and competitions in general.

Slatkin had never approved of music competitions and was reluctant to serve when approached about judging in the Cliburn. Then he realized that he wasn’t in a position to criticize something he’d never experienced. He seemed truly surprised to find that the Cliburn jury rules and the integrity of his jury colleagues make this particular competition as fair as it is possible for a competition to be.